Up Close and Dangerous (3 page)

He made good time; he lived on the outskirts of Seattle, plus he was heading away from the city instead of toward it, so his side of the road was relatively clear while the other side was a solid ribbon of vehicles. He pulled into his parking slot a mere twenty-seven minutes after hanging up the phone.

“That was fast,” Karen said when he entered the office, overnight bag in hand. “I have more bad news.”

“Lay it on me.” He put down the bag to pour a cup of coffee.

“The Mirage is in for repairs, and Dennis says it won’t be ready in time for the flight.”

Cam sipped in silence, thinking through the logistics. The Mirage could have made it to Denver without refueling. The Lear obviously could, but they used it for groups, not just one person—and though he could fly the Lear by himself, he preferred having a copilot. Neither of the Cessnas had the range, but the Skylane had a service ceiling of about eighteen thousand feet, while the Skyhawk’s ceiling was thirteen five. Some of Colorado’s mountain peaks topped fourteen thousand, so the choice of aircraft was a no-brainer.

“The Skylane,” he said. “I’ll refuel in Salt Lake City.”

“That’s what I figured,” Bret said, coming out of his office. His voice was so hoarse he sounded something like a frog with sinus congestion. “I told the crew to get it ready.”

Cam looked up. Karen hadn’t exaggerated Bret’s condition at all; if anything, she had understated it. His eyes were red-rimmed and so swollen just a narrow slit of blue iris showed. His face was blotchy, and he was breathing through his mouth. All in all, he looked like hell, and if his miserable expression was any indication he felt like it, too. Whatever it was he had, Cam didn’t want it.

“Don’t come any closer,” Cam warned, holding up his hand like a traffic cop.

“I’ve already sprayed him with Lysol,” Karen said, glaring across the office at Bret. “A considerate person, with half an ounce of common sense, would have stayed home and
called,
instead of coming to work to spread his germs around.”

“I can fly,” he croaked. “You’re the one who insists I can’t.”

“I’m
so
sure Mrs. Wingate would want to spend five hours cooped up in a little plane with you,” she said sarcastically. “I don’t want to spend five minutes in the same office with you.
Go. Home.
”

“I second that motion,” Cam growled. “Go home.”

“I took a decongestant,” Bret wheezed in protest. “It just hasn’t kicked in yet.”

“Then it isn’t going to kick in in time for you to fly.”

“You don’t like flying the family.”

Especially Mrs. Wingate,
Cam thought, but aloud he said, “It’s no big deal.”

“She likes me better.”

Now Bret sounded like a sulky kid, but then he always pouted when something interfered with his flight time. “She can tough it out for five hours,” Cam said, unrelenting. If he could, she definitely could. “You’re sick, I’m not. End of discussion.”

“I pulled up the weather reports for you,” Karen said. “They’re on your computer.”

“Thanks.” Going into his office, he seated himself at his desk and began reading. Bret stood in the office doorway, looking as if he didn’t know what to do with himself. “For God’s sake,” Cam said, “go to a doctor. You look as if you’ve been Maced. You may be having an allergic reaction to something.”

“All right.” He sneezed violently, then went into a coughing fit.

From where Cam was seated he couldn’t see Karen, but he heard a hissing noise, then Bret was enveloped in a mist. “Oh, for God’s sake,” the sick man wheezed, flapping his arms to drive the mist away. “Breathing this can’t be good.”

She simply sprayed more. “I give up,” he muttered after a futile few seconds of flapping, because he was losing ground against the cloud. “I’m going, I’m going. But if I develop lung failure because you’ve Lysoled me to death,
you’re fired
!”

“If you’re dead, you can’t fire me.” She got in the last shot, delivered to his back as he slammed out of the office.

After a moment of silence, Cam said, “Spray some more. Spray everything he touched.”

“I’ll need a new can. This one’s almost empty.”

“When I get back, I’ll buy you a whole case.”

“For now, I’ll spray the doorknobs he’s touched, but other than that stay out of his office.”

“What about the bathroom?”

“I’m not going in the men’s john. I used to think men were human, but I went in a jock john once and almost passed out from shock. Going into another one would probably throw me into psychotic episodes. You want the bathroom sprayed, you’ll have to do it yourself.”

He pondered for a moment on the faintly unbelievable detail that
she
worked for
them,
then he also considered the probability that the office would fall into complete chaos if she weren’t there. Probability, hell; she’d make damn certain it did. When he weighed those two viewpoints against each other, he concluded that bathroom spraying wasn’t on her list of duties. “I don’t have time right now.”

“The bathroom isn’t going anywhere—and I use the ladies’.” Meaning she didn’t care if the men’s got de-germed or not.

He stared through the open door, only now realizing how many of their conversations were carried on with her in the outer office and him in his office, and most of the time he couldn’t see her at all. “I’m going to put up a big round mirror,” he said. “Right there next to the outer door.”

“Why?”

“So I can see you when I talk to you.”

“Why do you want to do that?”

“To tell if you’re grinning.”

C
AM STOWED HIS
bag in the luggage compartment then inspected the Skylane, circling it, looking for anything that was loose or worn. He tugged, he pushed, he kicked. He climbed into the cockpit and ran through the preflight procedures, checking each item off on a list on his clipboard. He knew this procedure by heart, he could do it in his sleep, but he never relied on his memory alone; one moment of distraction, and he might miss something crucial. He went by the list so he knew he covered everything. When he was two miles high was the wrong time to discover something wasn’t working.

Checking his watch, he saw that it was almost time for Mrs. Wingate’s arrival. He started the engine, listening to the sound as it caught and smoothed out. He checked the instrumentation display on the monitors, double-checked that all the data was normal, then checked the area traffic before idling toward the chain-link gate in front of the terminal where he would pick up his passenger. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement in the direction of the parking lot, and he glanced that way just long enough to verify that a dark green Land Rover was pulling into the closest available slot.

Seeing her in the Land Rover always surprised him. Mrs. Wingate didn’t look like a utility-vehicle or SUV type of woman; if he’d been meeting her for the first time, he’d have pegged her for someone who preferred a big luxury model—not a sporty type, but one of those that someone else drove while she sat in the backseat. Instead she always drove herself, wheeling the four-wheel-drive around as if she intended to take off across a field at any moment.

He’d cut it too close. Normally Bret would already be at the gate, and he’d help her get her luggage out and stowed. Cam saw the way she stood for a moment, eyeing the Skylane coming closer, then she closed the door and went around to the back to begin hauling out her luggage herself. He was still a good sixty yards from the gate; no way would he get there in time.

Great. She’d probably start the flight already pissed, because no one was there to help her. On the other hand, at least she hadn’t stood there waiting, with her nose in the air, until someone did show.

Once he was in position he cut the engine and climbed out. As he turned toward the gate he saw her coming out of the terminal building, pulling a suitcase behind her with one hand while she carried a large tote bag with the other. Karen, of all people, was with her, rolling two more suitcases along.

Mrs. Wingate watched him stride closer, and turned to Karen. “I thought Bret was supposed to be my pilot,” she said in her cool, even tone.

“He’s sick,” Karen explained. “Trust me, you wouldn’t want him anywhere near you.”

Mrs. Wingate didn’t shrug, or let her expression give away even a hint of what she was thinking. “Of course not,” she said briefly, her eyes completely obscured by the black sunglasses she wore.

“Mrs. Wingate,” Cam said in greeting as he reached them.

“Captain Justice.” She stepped through the gate as soon as he opened it.

“Let me take your bags.”

Silently she relinquished her hold on the suitcase before his hand got anywhere near the handle. Following her lead, he didn’t speak as he stowed it and the two other bags in the luggage compartment, wondering if she’d left any clothes behind in her closet. The bags were so heavy she’d never have made it on a commercial airliner without paying a hefty fee.

When there was only one passenger he or she often opted to sit beside him rather than in one of the four passenger seats behind the cockpit, partly because talking to him was easier while wearing the copilot’s headset. He helped Mrs. Wingate into the plane, steadying her as she stepped on the strut and then inside; she took the seat behind him, making it evident she didn’t want to talk to him.

“Would you take the seat on the other side, please,” he directed, his tone of voice making it a demand rather than a request, despite the “please” he’d tacked on.

She didn’t move. “Why?”

He’d been out of the air force for almost seven years, but the military habits were so deeply ingrained that Cam almost barked at her to move her ass,
now,
which would likely have resulted in their contract being canceled within the next hour. He had to grit his teeth, but he managed to say in a relatively even tone, “Our weight will be balanced better if you sit on the other side.”

Silently she moved into the right-hand seat, buckling herself in. Opening her tote bag, she pulled out a thick hardback and immediately buried her nose in it, though her sunglasses were so dark he doubted she could read a word. Still, her message was received, loud and clear:
Don’t talk to me.
Fine. He didn’t want to talk to her any more than she wanted to talk to him.

He climbed into his seat, closed the door, and donned his headset. Karen waved before returning inside. After starting the engine and automatically checking that all the data reads were normal, he taxied from the ramp onto the runway. Not once, even during takeoff, did she look up from her book.

Yep, he thought wryly, it was going to be a long five or so hours.

4

G
REAT,
B
AILEY THOUGHT AS SOON AS SHE SAW
C
APTAIN
Justice climb from the cockpit of the Cessna and walk toward the gate. There was no mistaking his taller, leaner, broad-shouldered form for that of Bret Larsen, the pilot who usually flew her on her trips. Bret was cheerful and gregarious, while Captain Justice was grim with silent disapproval. Since marrying Jim Wingate, she’d become acutely attuned to when that attitude was directed at her, and though she would never characterize herself as thin-skinned, it still pissed her off.

She was damned tired of being looked at as a coldhearted gold digger who had taken advantage of a sick man. This whole situation had been Jim’s idea, not hers. Yes, she was doing it for the money, but damn it, she
earned
the salary she was paid every month. Seth’s and Tamzin’s inheritances were not only safe under her directorship, but growing at a healthy rate. She wasn’t a financial whiz by any means, but she had a good head for investing and she understood the markets. Jim had thought she was a little too conservative in her personal investments, but when it came to preserving trust funds that was exactly what he’d wanted.

She supposed she could take out an ad in the paper explaining all that, but why should she have to justify herself to people? Screw ’em.

That was an easy philosophy to take with Jim’s old friends who were now too good to socialize with her, and she was glad she didn’t have to spend time with them—she’d never thought of them as
her
friends anyway. She did, however, have to spend several hours cooped up in a small plane with Mr. Sourpuss, unless she wanted to cancel the flight and wait until Bret was well again—or book a commercial flight to Denver.

The idea was tempting. But she might not be able to get on the next flight out, assuming she could even get to the airport in time to make the flight, and her brother and sister-in-law were already on their way to Denver from Maine. Logan was supposed to have a four-wheel-drive rental waiting and ready to go by the time her flight landed. By eight this evening they were due at the outpost they’d selected, for two weeks of river rafting. The whole idea sounded like heaven to Bailey: two weeks of no cell service, no cold or disapproving looks, and most of all no Seth or Tamzin.

White-water rafting was Logan’s thing; he and Peaches, his wife, had even met while rafting. Bailey had done a little rafting in her college days and liked it, so this had seemed an ideal way to spend some time with them. Her family was scattered and had never been big on get-togethers, so she didn’t see them a lot. Her father lived in Ohio with his second wife; her mother, whose third husband had died almost four years ago, lived in Florida with her second ex-husband’s sister, who was also widowed. Bailey’s older sister, Kennedy, was ensconced in New Mexico. Bailey was closest to Logan, who was two years younger, but she hadn’t seen him since Jim’s funeral; he and Peaches were the only members of her family who had attended. Peaches was a sweetheart, and Bailey’s favorite of all her in-laws or step-whatevers.

The whole trip was Peaches’s idea, and e-mails had been flying for several months as they worked out the details. The plan was they would rent the bigger items, such as the tents and camp stoves and lanterns, that they would need for two weeks of camping on the banks of the river, and they would pick up food and water and other essentials—such as toilet paper—in Denver, but still Bailey’s suitcases were jammed with things she thought she might need.